WUNRN
Nepal
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The
problem is more prevalent in |
KATHMANDU, 2 May 2010 (IRIN) - Girls
who are menstruating in
“Many
girls drop out at secondary level and only 30 percent of the cohorts reach the
10th grade,” Sumon Kamal Tuladhar, an education specialist with the UN
Children’s Fund (UNICEF), told IRIN.
The
literacy rate for females stands at just 44.2 percent as opposed to 67.7
percent for males, according to
To
address this issue, better sanitation management in schools - particularly in
rural and semi-urban environments - is needed, Tuladhar stressed.
Poor
sanitation is linked to a lack of gender sensitivity, the UNICEF officer noted,
with most schools continuing to neglect the special needs of adolescent girls.
Many
girls are missing out on between 10 and 20 percent of all class days, she said.
Girls prefer to stay
home
According
to a 2009 survey by Water Aid, an international NGO, the key
reasons girls were absent while menstruating was a lack of privacy,
unavailability of sanitary disposal facilities and water shortages.
“Although
several public schools, even in rural areas, now have separate toilets for
female students, they are poorly managed,” said Susan Acharya, an education
expert at the
Acharya,
who has conducted several studies on girls’ education, says most rural schools
have no water taps, although the reason is more cultural than financial.
“Our
sanitation system is strongly linked to culture. Schools are regarded as
temples so you will not find toilets attached to schools,” she explained.
And
with taps installed far from the toilets, girls have no choice but to carry
whatever water is needed to clean themselves back and forth, all under the gaze
of their fellow classmates.
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Many girls would rather stay
at home than attend school |
Most
public schools in
“To
avoid humiliation - especially teasing by school boys - they [the girls] would
rather go home. This is one of the reasons why they lose interest in going to
school,” Acharya noted.
In
rural areas, girls cannot afford sanitary pads or tampons and instead use rags,
which if not properly cleaned can result in infections.
An opposing view
However,
a new study by the Menstruation and Education in Nepal
Project, supported by the
Based
on research in four schools in Chitwan District, nearly 300km west of the
capital, only a total of 0.4 days in a 180-day school year was missed.
“Claims
that menstruation is a barrier to schooling are overstated and modern sanitary
products are unlikely to affect educational attainment,” the report said.
That
assertion has been criticized by some Nepali experts, noting that Chitwan was
one of the country’s most developed urban areas.
“Such a
claim can only undermine the much-needed menstrual hygiene and management to be
introduced in schools by the government and integrated in the overall hygiene
intervention,” one expert, who asked not to be identified, said.
This is
supported by UNICEF’s 2009, Equity in School Water and Sanitation report.
“In
most schools, it was reported that girls took leave from school if they
menstruated,” it read.
“When
we talk about girls' education, we cannot only focus on scholarships or
building toilets. We need an integrated approach that involves gender
sensitivity among teachers and the need to educate the mothers also on the
issue of menstrual impact on girls,” said Manju Khadka, a women’s empowerment
officer from a local NGO, Educate
the Children.
Such
awareness was needed not just for male teachers, but school management
committees and parents as well, she said.
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